Vinaire's Blog

The Logic of “I”

Reference: The Logical Structure of the Universe (Part 3) – Space to Human Consciousness

It is interesting to observe that beingness starts with perception, evolves into concepts and ideas, and then develops into consciousness. Ego is that part of this consciousness, which wants to survive. Until ego comes about, survival is not in the picture. “I” is that ego.

Dianetics started out with the idea of SURVIVAL; and Scientology continued with that idea. Dianetics focused on the mechanism of the mind, but Scientology focused on the “I”. For Scientology, it was the survival of the “I” that mattered and the mind had to be subdued.

But it was the mind that came before the “I” in the process of evolution. How could one subdue the mind and have the “I” survive? This is altered sequence. “I” is evolved from the mind. It is not the other way around.

Beingness starts as space and evolves into perception, concepts, matrix of ideas, and consciousness respectively. Perception begins with feelings and evolves into sensations, representations, and mental cognitions. It is the pleasure-pain principle that jockeys the feelings, sensations, representations, etc., into expressions of emotion and motion. Pleasure and pain are essentially feelings. So the earliest feelings dominate rest of the evolution of beingness.

A feeling may be pictured as a frequency that gets more involved as evolution moves forward. It is the basis of beingness from space to human consciousness. It is harmonious frequency that appears as pleasure; and disharmonious frequency that appears as pain.

The basic-basic of Dianetics would be a fundamental disharmony.

Is it a fundamental disharmony that causes problems on the rest of the “time track”? I don’t think so. First of all, there is no linear track; there is a multi-dimensional matrix with everything associated with everything else. There is no “singularity” of beginning or end. Disharmony may erupt at any of the nodes of this matrix.

There is no fundamental basic-basic disharmony because that depends on a linear conception of a system. The system of beingness is not linear. The only way disharmony can be totally eliminated is by getting rid of the frequency itself. That will get rid of harmony as well.

What Scientology is trying to do is to keep the “I” there. But that “I” is made up of a complex frequency being the product of long evolution.
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July 21, 2015 – 8:40 AM Categories: Education | Post a comment

Tertium Organum, Chapter 9 (Assimilation)

Reference: Tertium Organum

NOTE: Text in color contains my comments.

Chapter 9 (Assimilation)

The receptivity of the world by a man and by an animal. Illusions of the animal and its lack of control of the receptive faculties. The world of moving planes. Angles and curves considered as motion. The third dimension as motion. The animal’s two-dimensional view of our three-dimensional world. The animal as a real two-dimensional being. Lower animals as one-dimensional beings. The time and space of a snail. The time sense as an imperfect space sense. The time and space of a dog. The change in the world coincident with a change in the psychic apparatus. The proof of Kant’s problem. The three-dimensional world—an illusionary perception.

We have established the enormous difference existing between the psychology of a man and of an animal. This difference undoubtedly profoundly affects the receptivity of the outer world by the animal. But how and in what? This is exactly what we do not know, and what we shall try to discover.

To this end we shall return to our receptivity of the world, investigate in detail the nature of that receptivity, and then imagine how the animal, with its more limited psychic equipment, receives its impression of the world.

The psychic equipment of an organism determines the degree of assimilation of sensations possible for that organism.

Let us note first of all that we receive the most incorrect impressions of the world as regards its outer form and aspect. We know that the world consists of solids, but we see and touch only surfaces. We never see and touch a solid. The solid—this is indeed a concept, composed of a series of perceptions, the result of reasoning and experience. For immediate sensation, surfaces alone exist. Sensations of gravity, mass, volume, which we mentally associate with the “solid,” are in reality associated with the sensations of surfaces. We only know that the sensation comes from the solid, but the solid itself we never sense. Perhaps it would be possible to call the complex sensation of surfaces, weight, mass, density, resistance, “the sensation of a solid,” but rather do we combine mentally all these sensations into one, and call that composite sensation a solid. We sense directly only surfaces; the weight and resistance of the solid, as such, we never separately sense.

But we know that the world does not consist of surfaces: we know that we see the world incorrectly, and that we never see it as it is, not alone in the philosophical meaning of the expression, but in the most simple geometrical meaning. We have never seen a cube, a sphere, etc., but only their surfaces. Knowing this, we mentally correct that which we see. Behind the surfaces we think the solid. But we can never even represent the solid to ourselves. We cannot imagine the cube or the sphere seen, not in perspective, but simultaneously from all sides.

It is clear that the world does not exist in perspective; nevertheless we cannot see it otherwise. We see everything only in perspective; that is, in the very act of receptivity the world is distorted in our eye, and we know that it is distorted. We know that it is not such as it appears, and mentally we are continuously correcting that which the eye sees, substituting the real content for those symbols of things which sight reveals.

Ouspensky is not considering mind as a sense organ. In fact, the assimilation includes thoughts that are sensed. Instead of mental correction, we should see it as mental assimilation.

Our sight is a complex faculty. It consists of visual sensations plus the memory of sensations of touch. The child tries to feel with its finger-tips everything that it sees—the nose of its nurse, the moon, the reflection of sun rays from the mirror on the wall. Only gradually does it learn to discern the near and the distant by means of sight alone. But we know that even in mature age we are easily subject to optical illusions.

Optical illusion occurs because of a lack of mental assimilation.

We see distant objects as flat, even more incorrectly, because relief is after all a symbol revealing a certain property of objects. A man at a long distance is pictured to us in silhouette. This happens because we never feel anything at a long distance, and the eye has not been taught to discern the difference in surfaces which at short distances are felt by the finger-tips.*

[* In this connection, there have been some interesting observations made upon the blind who are just beginning to see. In the magazine Slepetz (The Blind, 1912) there is a description from direct observation of how those born blind learn to see after the operation which restored their sight. This is how a seventeen-year old youth, who recovered his sight after the removal of a cataract, describes his impressions. On the third day after the operation he was asked what he saw. He answered that he saw an enormous field of light and misty objects moving upon it. These objects he did not discern. Only after four days did he begin to discern them, and after an interval of two weeks, when his eyes were accustomed to the light, he started to use his sight practically, for the discernment of objects. He was shown all the colors of the spectrum and he learned to distinguish them very soon, except yellow and green, which he confused for a long time. The cube, sphere and pyramid, when placed before him seemed to him like the square, the flat disc, and the triangle. When the flat disc was put alongside the sphere he distinguished no difference between them. When asked what impression both kinds of figures produced on him just at first, he said that he noticed at once the difference between the cube and the sphere, and understood that they were not drawings, but was unable to deduce from them their relation to the square and to the circle, until he felt in his fingertips the desire to touch these objects. When he was allowed to take the cube, sphere and pyramid in his hands he at once identified these solids by the sense of touch, and wondered very much that he was unable to recognize them by sight. He lacked the perception of space, perspective. All objects seemed flat to him: though he knew that the nose protrudes, and that the eyes are located in cavities, the human face seemed flat to him. He was delighted with his recovered vision, but in the beginning it fatigued him to exercise it: the impressions oppressed and exhausted him. For this reason, though possessing perfect sight, he sometimes turned to the sense of touch as to repose.]

We can never see, even in the minute, any part of the outer world as it is, that is, as we know it. We can never see the desk or the wardrobe all at once, from all sides and inside. Our eye distorts the outside world in a certain way, in order that, looking about, we may be able to define the position of objects relatively to ourselves. But to look at the world from any other standpoint than our own is impossible for us, nor can we ever see it correctly, without distortion by our sight.

Mental assimilation improves as the psychic equipment improves with evolution.

Relief and perspective—these constitute the distortions of the object by our eye. They are optical illusions, delusions of sight. The cube in perspective is but a conventional sign of the three-dimensional cube, and all that we see is the conditional image of that conditionally real three-dimensional world with which our geometry deals, and not that world itself. On the basis of what we see we surmise that it exists in reality. We know that what we see is incorrect, and we think of the world as other than it appears. If we had no doubt about the correctness of our sight, if we knew that the world were such as it appears, then obviously we would think of the world in the manner in which we see it. In reality we are constantly engaged in making corrections.

It is clear that the ability to make corrections in that which the eye sees demands, undoubtedly, the possession of the concept, because the corrections are made by a process of reasoning, which is impossible without concepts. Deprived of the faculty to make corrections in that which the eye sees we should have a different outlook on the world, i.e., much of that which is we should see incorrectly ; we should not see much of that which is, but we should see much of that which does not exist in reality at all. First of all, we should see an enormous number of non-existent motions. Every motion of ours in our direct sensation of it, is bound up with the motion of everything around us. We know that this motion is an illusory one, but we see it as real. Objects turn in front of us, run past us, overtake one another. If we are riding slowly past houses, these turn slowly, if we are riding fast they turn quickly; also, trees grow up before us unexpectedly, run away and disappear.

Reasoning is a function that occurs naturally when all relevant data is available. It is a natural part of mental assimilation and doesn’t require any special effort.

This seeming animation of objects, coupled with dreams, has always inspired, and still inspires the fairy tale.

The “motions” of objects, to a person in motion, are very complex indeed. Observe how strangely the field of wheat behaves just beyond the window of the car in which you are riding. It runs to the very window, stops, turns slowly around itself and runs away. The trees of the forest run apparently at differ- ent speeds, overtaking one another. The entire landscape is one of illusory motion. Behold also the sun, which even up to the present time “rises” and “sets” in all languages—this “motion” having been in the past so passionately defended!

This is all seeming, and though we know that these motions are illusory, we see them nevertheless, and sometimes we are deluded. To how many more illusions should we be subject had we not the power of mentally analyzing their determining causes, but were obliged to believe that everything exists as it appears?

I see it; therefore this exists.

This affirmation is the principal source of all illusions. To be true, it is necessary to say:

I see it; therefore this does not exist—or at least I see it; therefore this is not so.

Although we can say the last, the animal cannot, for to its apprehension things are as they appear. It must believe what it sees.

How does the world appear to the animal?

Objects appear and disappear because of a narrow window of “direct” sensuous receptivity. But when all sensuous receptivity (unassimilated and assimilated) is taken into account, such “illusion of motion” in terms of past, present and future goes away.

The world appears to it as a series of complicated moving surfaces. The animal lives in a world of two dimensions. Its universe has for it the properties and appearance of a surface. And upon this surface transpire an enormous number of different motions of a most fantastic character.

Why should the world appear to the animal as a surface?

First of all, because it appears as a surface to us.

But we know that the world is not a surface, and the animal cannot know it. It accepts everything just as it appears. It is powerless to correct the testimony of its eyes—or it cannot do so to the same extent that we do.

We are able to measure in three mutually independent directions: the nature of our mind permits us to do this. The animal can measure simultaneously in two directions only—it can never measure in three directions at once. This is due to the fact that not possessing concepts, it is unable to retain in the mind the idea of the first two directions, for measuring the third.

The animal cannot assimilate the sensations (mentally) to the degree that humans can.

Let me explain this more exactly.

Suppose we imagine that we are measuring the cube.

In order to measure the cube in three directions, it is necessary while measuring in one direction, to keep in mind two others—to remember. But it is possible to keep them in mind as concepts only, that is, associating them with different concepts—pasting upon them different labels. So, pasting upon the first two directions the labels of length and breadth, it is possible to measure the height. It is impossible otherwise. As perceptions, the first two measurements of the cube are completely identical, and assuredly will mingle into one in the mind. The animal, without the aid of concepts, cannot paste upon the first two measurements the labels of length and breadth. Therefore, at the moment when it begins to measure the height of the cube, the first two measurements will be confused in one. The animal attempting to measure the cube by means of perceptions only without the aid of concepts, will be like a cat I once observed. Her kittens—five or six in number—she dragged asunder into different rooms, and could not then collect them together. She seized one, put it beside another, ran for a third and brought it to the first two, but then she seized the first and carried it away to another room, putting it beside the fourth ; after that she ran back and seized the second and dragged it to the room containing the fifth, and so on. For a whole hour the cat had no rest with her kittens, she suffered severely, and could accomplish nothing. It is clear that she lacked the concepts which would enable her to remember how many kittens she had altogether.

It is in the highest degree important to understand the relation of the animal consciousness to the measuring of bodies.

The great point is that the animal sees surfaces only. (We may say this with complete assurance, because we ourselves see surfaces only). Thus seeing only surfaces the animal can imagine but two dimensions. The third dimension, in contradistinction to the other two, can only be thought; that is, this dimension must be a concept; but animals do not possess concepts. The third dimension like the others appears as a perception. Therefore, at the moment of its appearance, the first two will inevitably mingle into one. The animal is capable of perceiving the difference between two dimensions: the difference between three it cannot perceive. This difference must be known beforehand, and to know it concepts are necessary.

The physical sense of sight sees only surfaces because they reflect light. It takes mental assimilation of visual impressions to grasp the third dimension.

Identical perceptions mix into one for the animal, just as we ourselves confuse two simultaneous, similar phenomena proceeding from the same point. For the animal it will be one phenomenon, just as for us all similar, simultaneous phenomena, proceeding from a single point will be one phenomenon.

Therefore the animal will see the world as a surface, and will measure this surface in two directions only.

But how is it possible to explain the fact that the animal, inhabiting a two-dimensional world, or rather, perceiving itself as in a two-dimensional world, is perfectly oriented in our three-dimensional world? How explain the fact that the bird flies up and down, sideways and straight ahead—in all three directions; that the horse jumps over ditches and barriers; that the dog and cat appear to understand the properties of depth and height simultaneously with those of length and breadth?

In order to explain these things it is necessary to return to the fundamental principles of animal psychology. It has been previously shown that many properties of objects remembered by us as general properties of genus, class, species, are remembered by animals as individual properties of objects. To orientate in this enormous reserve of individual properties preserved in the memory, animals are assisted by the emotional tone which is linked up in them with each perception and each remembered sensation.

For example, an animal knows two roads as two entirely separate phenomena having nothing in common; that is, one road consists of a series of definite perceptions colored by definite emotional tones; the other phenomenon—the other road consists of another series of definite perceptions colored with other tones. We say that this, that, and the other are roads. One leads to one place, a second to another. For an animal the two roads have nothing in common. But it remembers in their proper sequence all the emotional tones which are linked with the first road and with the second one, and it therefore remembers both roads with their turns, ditches, fences, etc.

Thus the remembering of definite properties of observed objects helps the animal to orient itself in the world of phenomena. But as a rule before new phenomena an animal is much more helpless than a man.

An animal sees two dimensions; the third dimension it senses constantly, but does not see. It senses the third dimension as something transient, just as we sense time.

The surfaces which an animal sees possess for it many strange properties, first of all, numerous and various motions.

As has been said already, all those illusory motions which seem to us real, but which we know to be illusory, are entirely real to the animal, the turning about of the houses as we ride past, the growth of a tree out of some corner, the passing of the moon between clouds, etc., etc.

But in addition to all this, many motions must exist for the animal of which we have no suspicion. The fact is that innumerable objects quite immobile for us—properly all objects—must seem to the animal to be in motion. AND THE THIRD-DIMRNSION OF SOLIDS WILL APPEAR TO IT IN THESE MOTIONS; I. E., THE THIRD-DIMENSION OF SOLIDS WILL APPEAR TO IT AS A MOTION.

The animal compensates for his limited mental assimilation of sight through the use of emotions associated with individual objects.

Let us try to imagine how the animal perceives the objects of the outer world.

Suppose it is confronted with a large disc, and simultaneously with a large sphere of the same diameter.

Standing directly opposite them at a certain distance, the animal will see two circles. Beginning to walk around them, it will observe that the sphere remains a circle, while the disc gradually narrows, transforming itself into a narrow strip. On moving farther around, the strip begins to expand and gradually transforms itself into a circle. The sphere will not change during this circumambulation. But when the animal approaches toward it certain strange phenomena ensue.

Let us try to understand how the animal will perceive the surface of the sphere as contrasted with the surface of the disc.

One thing is sure: it will perceive the spherical surface differently from us. We perceive convexity or sphericality as a common property of many surfaces. The animal, on the contrary, because of the very properties of its psychic apparatus, will perceive that sphericality as an individual property of a given sphere. Now how will this sphericality as an individual property of a given sphere appear to it?

We may declare with complete assurance that the sphericality will appear to the animal as a movement on the surface which it sees.

During the approach of the animal toward the sphere something like the following must happen: the surface which the animal sees starts to move quickly; its center spreads out, and all of the other points run away from the center with a velocity proportional to their distance from the center (or the square of their distance from the center).

It is in this way that the animal senses the spherical surface—much as we sense sound.

At a certain distance from the sphere the animal perceives it as a plane. Approaching or touching some point on the sphere it sees that all other points have changed with relation to this particular point, they have all altered their position on the plane—have moved to one side, as it were. Touching another point, it sees that all the rest have moved in similar fashion.

This property of the sphere will appear as its motion, its “vibration.” The sphere will actually resemble a vibrating, oscillating surface, in the same way that each angle of an immobile object will appear to the animal as a motion.

The animal can see an angle of a three-dimensional object only while moving past it, and during the time it takes, the object will seem to the animal to have turned—a new side has appeared, and the side first seen has disappeared or moved away. The angle will be perceived as rotation, as the motion of the object, i.e., as something transient, temporal, as a change of state in the object. Remembering the angles which it has seen before seen as the motion of bodies—the animal will consider that they have ceased, have ended, have disappeared—that they are in the past.

Of course the animal cannot reason in this way, but it acts as though it had thus reasoned.

Could the animal think about those phenomena which have not yet entered into its life (i.e., angles and curved surfaces) it would undoubtedly imagine them in time only: it could not prefigure for them any real existence at the present moment when they have not yet appeared. And were it able to express an opinion on this subject, it would say that angles exist in potentiality, that they will be, but that for the present they do not exist.

The angle of a house past which a horse runs every day is a phenomenon, repeating under certain circumstances, but nevertheless a phenomenon proceeding in time, and not a spatial and constant property of the house.

For the animal an angle will be a temporal phenomenon and not a spatial one, as it is for us.

Thus we see that the animal will perceive the properties of our third dimension as motions, and will refer these properties to time, i.e., to the past or future, or to the present—the momentof the transition of the future into the past.

This circumstance is in the highest degree important, for therein lies the key to our own receptivity of the world; we shall therefore examine into it more in detail.

Motion in terms of past, present, and future appears more strongly for animals because of the limited span of their mental assimilation and consciousness.

Up to the present time we have taken into consideration only the higher animals: the dog, the cat, the horse. Let us now try the lower: let us take the snail. We know nothing about its inner life, but undoubtedly its receptivity resembles ours scarcely at all. In all probability the snail possesses some obscure sensations of its environments. Probably it feels heat, cold, light, darkness, hunger—and it instinctively (i.e., urged by pleasure-pain guidance) strives to reach the uneaten edge of the leaf on which it rests, and instinctively avoids the dead leaf. Its movements are guided by pleasure-pain: it constantly strives toward the one, and away from the other. It always moves upon a single line, from the unpleasant to the pleasant, and in all probability except for this line it is not conscious of anything and does not sense anything. This line is its entire world. All sensations, entering from the outside, the snail senses upon this line of its motion, and these come to it out of time—from the potential they become the present. For the snail our entire universe exists in the future and in the past—i.e., in time. In space only one line exists. All the rest is time. It is more than probable that the snail is not conscious of its movements. Making efforts with its entire body it moves forward to the fresh edge of the leaf, but it seems as though the leaf were coming to it, appearing at that moment, coming out of time as the morning comes to us.

The snail is a one-dimensional being.

The higher animals—the dog, cat, and horse—are two-dimensional beings. To the higher animal all space appears as a surface, as a plane. Everything out of this plane lives for it in time.

Thus we see that the higher animal—the two-dimensional being as compared with the one-dimensional—extracts or captures from time one more dimension.

The world of a snail has one dimension; our second and third dimensions are for it in time.

The world of a dog is two-dimensional; our third dimension is for it in time.

An animal can remember all “phenomena” which it has observed, i.e., all properties of three-dimensional solids with which it has come in contact, but it cannot know that the (for it) recurring phenomenon is a constant property of the three-dimensional solid—an angle, curvature, or convexity.

Such is the psychology of the receptivity of the world by a two-dimensional being.

For such a being a new sun will rise every day. Yesterday’s sun is gone, and will not appear again; tomorrow’s does not yet exist.

Assimilation of sensations in lower animals, such as, snails seems to be still more limited. Such assimilations appears to be “one-dimensional” as it is motivated only by pleasure-pain in a very simple manner. In comparison, the more complex assimilation of higher animals appears to be “two-dimensional.”

Rostand did not understand the psychology of “Chantecler.” The cock could not think that he woke up the sun by his crowing. To him the sun does not go to sleep, it goes into the past, disappears, suffers annihilation, ceases to be. If it comes on the morrow it will be a new sun, just as for us with every new year comes a new spring. In order to be the sun shall not wake up, but arise, be born. The cock (if it could think without losing its characteristic psychology) could not believe in the appearance to-day of the same sun which was yesterday. This is purely human reasoning.

For the animal a new sun rises every morning, just as for us a new morning comes with every day and a new spring with every year.

The animal is not in a position to understand that the sun is the same yesterday and today, EXACTLY IN THE SAME WAY THAT WE PROBABLY CANNOT UNDERSTAND THAT THE MORNING IS THE SAME AND THE SPRING IS THE SAME.

The motion of objects which is not illusory, even for us, but a real motion, like that of a revolving wheel, a passing carriage, and so on, will differ for the animal very much from that motion which it sees in all objects which are for us immobile—i.e., from that motion in which the third dimension of solids is as it were revealed to it. The first mentioned motion (real for us) will seem to the animal arbitrary, alive.

And these two kinds of motion will be incommensurable for it.

The animal will be in a position to measure an angle or a convex surface, though not understanding their true nature, and though regarding them as motion. But true motion, i.e., that which is true motion to us, it will never be in a position to measure, because for this it is necessary to possess our concept of time, and to measure all motions with reference to some one more constant motion, i.e., to compare all motions with some one. Without concepts the animal is powerless to do this. Therefore the (for us) real motions of objects will be incommensurable for it, and being incommensurable, will be incommensurable with other motions which are real and measurable for it, but which are illusory for us—motions which in reality represent the third dimension of solids.

This last conclusion is inevitable. If the animal apprehends and measures as motion that which is not motion, clearly it cannot measure by one and the same standard that which is motion, and that which is not motion.

Something that is immobile, appears as “motion in time” to an animal because the animal is perceiving motion in terms of past, present and future.

But this does not mean that it cannot know the character of motions going on in the world and cannot conform itself to them. On the contrary, we see that the animal orientates itself perfectly among the motions of the objects of our three-dimensional world. Here comes into play the aid of instinct, i.e., the ability, developed by millenniums of selection, to act expediently without consciousness of purpose. Moreover, the animal discerns perfectly the motions going on around it.

But discerning two kinds of phenomena, two kinds of motion, the animal will explain one of them by means of some incomprehensible inner property of objects, i.e., in all probability it will regard this motion as the result of the animation of objects, and the moving objects as animated beings.

The kitten plays with the ball or with its tail because ball and tail are running away from it.

The bear will fight with the beam which threatens to throw him off the tree, because in the swinging beam he divines something alive and hostile.

The horse is frightened by the bush because the bush unexpectedly turned and waved a branch.

In the last case the bush need not even to have moved at all, for the horse was running, and it seemed therefore as though the bush moved, and consequently that it was animated. In all probability all movement is thus animated for the animal. Why does the dog bark so desperately at the passing carriage? This is not entirely clear to us for we do not realize that to the eyes of the dog the carriage is turning, twisting, grimacing all over. It is alive in every part—the wheels, the top, the mud-guards, seats, passengers— all these are moving, turning.

Because of the same law an animal can never understand a picture. The picture is immobile, while for the animal the world is always moving, never coming to a state of rest and immobility.

For an animal, the world is moving, because it is moving relative to its body, which acts as a reference point for it. The actual motion then appears as objects being self-animated.

Now let us draw certain conclusions from all of the foregoing.

We have established the fact that man possesses sensations, perceptions and concepts; that the higher animals possess sensation and perceptions, and the lower animals sensations only. The conclusion that animals have no concepts we deduced from the fact that they have no speech. Next we have established that having no concepts, animals cannot comprehend the third dimension, but see the world as a surface; i.e., they have no means—no instrument— for the correction of their incorrect sensations of the world. Furthermore, we have found that seeing the world as a surface, animals see upon this surface many motions which for us are non-existent. That is, all those properties of solids which we regard as the properties of three-dimensionality, animals represent to themselves as motions. Thus the angle and the spherical surface appear to them as the movements of a plane. After that we came to the conclusion that everything which we regard as constant in the region of the third dimension, animals regard as transient things which happen to objects—temporal phenomena.

Thus in all its relations to the world the animal is quite analogous to the imagined, unreal two-dimensional being living upon a plane. All our world appears to the animal as the plane through which phenomena are passing, moving upon time, or in time.

And so we may say that we have established the following: that under certain limitations of the psychic apparatus for receiving the outer world, for the subject possessing this apparatus, the entire aspect and all properties of the world will suffer change. And two subjects, living side by side, but possessing different psychic apparatus, will inhabit different worlds—the properties of the extension of the world will be different for them. And we observed the conditions, not invented for the purpose, not concocted in imagination, but really existing in nature; that is, the psychic conditions governing the lives of animals, under which the world appears as a plane or as a line.

That is to say, we have established that the three-dimensional extension of the world depends upon the properties of our psychic apparatus.

Or, that the three-dimensionality of the world is not its property, but a property of our receptivity of the world.

In other words, the three dimensionality of the world is a property of its reflection in our consciousness.

Ouspensky, like Kant, is looking at the perception of the world to be subjective. But when are not identified with our consciousness, we can look at the perception as resulting from the degree of assimilation of the sensations. A human being can then work to bring up the assimilation his sensations to a higher level.

If all this is so, then it is obvious that we have really proved the dependence of space upon the space-sense. And if we have proven the existence of a space-sense lower in comparison with ours, by this we have proven the possibility of a space-sense higher in comparison with ours.

And we shall grant that if in us there develops the fourth unit of reasoning, as different from the concept as the concept is different from perception, so simultaneously with it will appear for us in the surrounding world a fourth characteristic which we may designate geometrically as the fourth direction or the fourth perpendicular, because in this characteristic will be included the properties of objects perpendicular to all properties known to us, and not parallel to any of them. In other words, we will see, or we will feel ourselves in a space not of three, but of four dimensions; and in the objects surrounding us, and in our own bodies, will appear common properties of the fourth dimension which we did not notice before, or which we regarded as individual properties of objects (or their motion), just as animals regard the extension of objects in the third dimension as their motion.

And when we shall see or feel ourselves in the world of four dimensions we shall see that the world of three dimensions does not really exist and has never existed: that it was the creation of our own fantasy, a phantom host, an optical delusion, a delusion—anything one pleases excepting only reality.

And all this is not an “hypothesis,” not a supposition, but exact metaphysical fact, just such a fact as the existence of infinity. For positivism to insure its existence it was necessary to annihilate infinity somehow, or at least to call it an “hypothesis” which may or may not be true. Infinity however is not an hypothesis, but a fact and such a fact is the multi-dimensionality of space and all that it implies, namely, the unreality of everything three-dimensional.

There can be an independent dimension of awareness that is not identified with anything in this world. An awareness on this dimension shall be completely objective without subjectivity.

July 18, 2015 – 8:56 PM Categories: Philosophy | Post a comment

The Logic of Reality

Scientology treats “Static” as an absolute. That is logically inconsistent because that makes “static” a singularity. There is no singularity in a logically consistent system. The “static” is as temporary as anything else. It appears momentarily at the end of a cycle of the universe and before the start of the next cycle.

But this “Static” of Scientology is derived from Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover.” The idea of “Unmoved Mover” is logically inconsistent, but it is assumed to be above logic by Aristotle.

The ideas of “Yahweh,” “God,” and “Allah” seem to have their basis in the idea of “Unmoved Mover.”

This makes the logic of “Western mind” fundamentally pinned on a logical inconsistency.

The “Eastern mind” subscribes to the premise that reality is logically consistent at all levels.

There are no absolutes (singularities) in a logically consistent system.

Thus, in the ultimate sense, reality is circular because any linearity implies an absolute starting point.

The “western mind” seems to find it very disconcerting that its ultimate basis might not be absolute.

July 18, 2015 – 6:30 AM Categories: Uncategorized | Comments (26)

Universe: Space to Human Consciousness (old)

Reference: The Logical Structure of the Universe

NOTE: The following data is postulated based on contemplation of logical consistency among the data available.

CONTINUOUS CHANGE & COSMIC INFLUENCE

This is a universe of change. It is changing continuously without stopping. Its behavior is analogous to the motion of a pendulum that keeps on swinging under the influence of gravity. Similarly, the universe seems to be changing continuously in a harmonic fashion under some cosmic influence.

The cosmic influence has been referred to as Brahma in the Vedas. Brahma is very different from the universe of continuous change. Brahma is beyond any beingness because beingness is the property of the universe alone.

THE UNIVERSE AND BEINGNESS

The universe is cycling between static and kinetic states. The state of static consists of maximum potential (no manifestation). The moment state of static is disturbed the beingness of space emerges. Space then acquires time and frequency, which increases as the universe moves toward a kinetic state. The state of kinetic consists of maximum dynamic (complete manifestation).

Beingness, which starts as space, gradually develops and finally acquires the human form. The potential of the universe expresses itself through this scale of beingness. Any concept of “God with beingness” lies on this scale.

THE STATIC & DISTURBANCE

The state of static comes about at the end of a cycle of the universe and before the start of the next cycle. This is a momentary state of total potentiality. Nothing is there, not even space and awareness.

As the state of static is disturbed toward the state of kinetic, first there is emergence of space filled with potential. Then there is a band of perception paralleling the electromagnetic spectrum. Next there is a band of concept and ideas paralleling the atomic configurations. Beyond that there is a band of consciousness (self-awareness) paralleling the physical forms. Ultimately, this evolution culminates in human form and consciousness.

SPACE AND AWARENESS

Beingness arises as space the moment static is disturbed. This space is filled with potentiality. There is a physical-spiritual spread to this beingness. The physical aspect is the outer form of space; and the spiritual aspect is the inner essence of awareness. This is the elemental “Self.” There is no intelligence at this point. There is only potential.

PERCEPTIONS

The emergence of space then develops into a band of disturbance levels of increasing frequencies. Disturbance comes about as time enters into space. Space is then represented by a wavelength and time by a period. The spacetime is then represented by the disturbance. The outer form of the disturbance appears as the electromagnetic spectrum, and the inner essence appears as perception. Commensurate with radio waves, microwaves, visual spectrum and ionizing radiation, we have feelings, sensations, representations and precepts.

These perceptions seem to moulded in the fabric of the universe. But they also seem to arise within human beingness. Perceptions in human beingness consist of same disturbance levels that travel along the nerves of a human form.

Radio waves & Feelings

The internal essence in the range of radio waves seems to be feelings. Since the inertia in this frequency range is low, the feelings arise and disappear in a leisurely manner or very quickly. There are general feelings of love, happiness, unhappiness, etc. But there can also be mysterious feelings, such as, the feeling of somebody looking at you.

Microwaves & Sensations

Sensations seem to form the internal essence of microwaves in a higher frequency range. The perceptions of taste, smell and touch fall under the category of sensations. Here we have the sensations of temperature and electrical also. The frequencies associated with sensations seem to have a frequency envelope of feelings.

Visual spectrum & Representations

In the higher frequency range of visual spectrum sensations seem to evole into representations. The internal essence in this frequency range is the formation of awareness as specific objects. Correspondingly in human form we have vision and the ability to visualize. As we go up in frequency from feelings to sensations to representations, there seem to be increasing definition in perception. The sharpest perception seems to be representations provided by vision.

Ionizing Radiation & Precepts

Beyond visual spectrum is the higher frequency range of ionizing radiation. Here we have penetrating X-rays and Gamma rays. The inner essence of this frequency range seems to be precepts that evolve from combinations of feelings, sensations and representations. As observed from the effects of music, hearing seems to lay in this range. Even when listening to voice and animal sounds, there seems to be an effect that goes into dimensions, such as, inertia, gravity, weight, importance, purpose, intentions, etc.

Precepts appear as an interesting mix of feelings, sensations and representations, but there are also evolved dimensions expressed through art that evoke emotions. Emotion is like a current coursing through a matrix of precepts. There is anger, fear and apathy on one hand, and contentment, inspiration and interaction on the other.

Emotions have the property of being intense and volatile. Various perceptions seem to be combining randomly into rapidly changing configurations. The feelings, sensations, representations and other precepts seem to be in turmoil interacting with each other in a frenzied manner.

The upper end of Disturbance scale doesn’t seem to be a simple spectrum. Earlier frequencies seem to be riding on later frequencies with everything coming into a boil at this level. Something happens at this point to make the disturbance converge.

CONCEPT & IDEAS

The disturbance seems to become unstable at the upper end of the Disturbance scale. The perceptual mix of feelings, sensations, representations, etc., starts to converge into a conceptual configuration that parallels the atomic configuration.

The atomic configuration consists of a hard nucleus surrounded by an electronic region. The inner essence seems to be a conceptual configuration that consists of a well-formed nucleus of an idea surrounded by a contextual field of precepts. Just as the perceptions parallel the electromagnetic spectrum, A perceptual field parallels the electronic field of the atom, and an idea in the perceptual field parallels a nucleus in the electronic field. There are many atomic configurations per the Periodic Table. Maybe there are many basic conceptual configurations too.

All these layers of perceptions have to be very precise to result in a precise idea. When idea is not precise then the associated percepts, representations, sensations and feelings have not settled in a precise configuration yet. We see a lot of emotions being expressed by people, when their perceptions have not settled into a precise understanding in terms of ideas.

CONSCIOUSNESS (SELF-AWARENESS)

Atoms are formed into a matrix of elements, compounds, and materials, which are then shaped into forms. Thus we have a large number of nuclear, chemical and physical properties that come about.

Similarly, we have concepts formed into a matrix of ideas categorized as axioms, principles, laws, theories, hypotheses, etc., which are then shaped into experiences. Thus, there is evolution of awareness having a center as “self.” Thus come about self-awareness or consciousness. This area requires considerable research.

Ultimately, there is the evolution of human form along with its property of human consciousness. So, this human consciousness is a product of millions and billions of years of evolution. For human consciousness to investigate its own evolution is an incredible endeavor to engage in.

The human beingness is very complex associations of percepts, concepts, and consciousness. “I” is an expression of an incredible amount of development over the evolutionary line. It has come very far from the elemental awareness of space.

July 15, 2015 – 10:02 PM Categories: KHTK | Comments (1)

Tertium Organum, Chapter 8 (Consciousness)

Reference: Tertium Organum

NOTE: Text in color contains my comments.

Chapter 8 (Consciousness)

Our receptive apparatus. Sensation. Perception. Conception. Intuition. Art as the language of the future. To what extent does the three-dimensionality of the world depend upon the properties of our receptive apparatus? What might prove this interdependence? Where may we find the real affirmation of this interdependence? The animal psyche. In what does it differ from the human? Reflex action. The irritability of the cell. Instinct. Pleasure-pain. Emotional thinking. The absence of concepts. Language of animals. Logic of animals. Different degrees of psychic development in animals. The goose, the cat, the dog and the monkey.

In order exactly to define the relation of our I to the external world, and to determine what, in our receptivity of the world, belongs to it, and what belongs to ourselves, let us turn to elementary psychology and examine the mechanism of our receptive apparatus.

The fundamental unit of our receptivity is a sensation. This sensation is an elementary change in the state of consciousness, produced, as it seems to us, either by some change in the state of the external world in relation to our consciousness, or by a change in the state of our consciousness in relation to the external world. Such is the teaching of physics and psycho-physics. Into the consideration of the correctness or incorrectness of the construction of these sciences I shall not enter. Suffice it to define a sensation as an elementary change in the state of consciousness—as the element, that is, as the fundamental unit of this change. Feeling the sensation we assume that it appears, so to speak, as the reflection of some change in the external world.

The sensations felt by us leave a certain trace in our memory. The accumulating memories of sensations begin to blend in consciousness into groups, and according to their similitude, tend to associate, to sum up, to be opposed; the sensations which are usually felt in close connection with one another will arise in memory in the same connection. Gradually, out of the memories of sensations, perceptions are compounded. Perceptions—these are so to speak the group memories of sensations. During the compounding of perceptions, sensations are polarizing in two clearly defined directions. The first direction of this grouping will be according to the character of the sensations. (The sensations of a yellow color will combine with the sensations of a yellow color; sensations of a sour taste with those of a sour taste). The second direction will be according to the time of the reception of sensations. When various sensations, constituting a single group, and compounding one perception, enter simultaneously, then the memory of this definite group of sensations is ascribed to a common cause. This ” common cause” is projected into the outside world as the object, and it is assumed that the given perception itself reflects the real properties of this object. Such group remembrance constitutes perception, the perception, for example, of a tree—that tree. Into this group enter the green color of the leaves, their smell, their shadows, their rustle in the wind, etc. All these things taken together form as it were a focus of rays coming out of consciousness, gradually concentrated upon the outside object and coinciding with it either well or ill.

In the further complication of the psychical life, the memories of perceptions proceed as with the memories of sensations. Mingling together, the memories of perceptions, or the “images of perceptions,” combine in various ways: they sum up, they stand opposed, they form groups, and in the end give rise to concepts.

Thus out of various sensations, experienced (in groups) at different times, a child gets the perception of a tree (that tree), and afterwards, out of the images of perceptions of different trees there emerges the concept of a tree, i.e., not “that tree,” but trees in general.

Consciousness starts with sensation, which assimilates into perception, memory, experience, knowlege and wisdom in that order. There is a time sense associated with these assimilations.

The formation of perceptions leads to the formation of words, and the appearance of speech.

The beginning of speech may appear on the lowest level of psychic life, during the period of living by sensations, and it will become more complex during the period of living by perceptions; but unless there be concepts it will not be speech in the true meaning of the word.

On the lower levels of psychic life certain sensations can be expressed by certain sounds. Therefore it is possible to express common impressions of horror, anger, pleasure. These sounds may serve as signals of danger, as commands, demands, threats, etc, but it is impossible to say much by means of them.

In the further development of speech, if words or sounds express perceptions, as in the case of children, this means that the given sound or the given word designates only that object to which it refers. For each new similar object must exist another new sound, or a new word. If the speaker designates different objects by one and the same sound or word, it means that in his opinion the objects are the same, or that knowingly he is calling different objects by the same name. In either case it will be difficult to understand him, and such speech cannot serve as an example of clear speech. For instance, if a child call a tree by a certain sound or word, having in view that tree only, and not knowing other trees at all, then any new tree which he may see he will call by a new word, or else he will take it for the same tree. The speech in which “words” correspond to perceptions is as it were made up of proper nouns. There are no appellative nouns; and not only substantives, but verbs, adjectives and adverbs; all have the character of “proper nouns;” that is, they apply to a given action, to a given quality, or to a given property.

The appearance of words of a common meaning in human speech signifies the appearance of concepts in consciousness.

Speech consists of words, each word expressing a concept. Concept and word are in substance one and the same thing; only the first (the concept) represents, so to speak, the inner side, and the second (the word) the outer side. Or, as says Dr. R. M. Bucke (the author of the book “Cosmic Consciousness,” about which I shall have much to say later on), “A word (i.e., concept) is the algebraical sign of a thing.”

It has been noticed thousands of times that the brain of a thinking man does not exceed in size the brain of a non-thinking wild man in anything like the proportion in which the mind of the thinker exceeds the mind of the savage. The reason is that the brain of a Herbert Spencer has very little more work to do than has the brain of a native Australian, for this reason, that Spencer does all his characteristic mental work by signs or counters which stand for concepts, while the savage does all or nearly all his by means of cumbersome recepts. The savage is in a position comparable to that of the astronomer who makes his calculations by arithmetic, while Spencer is in the position of one who makes them by algebra. The first will fill many great sheets of paper with figures and go through immense labor; the other will make the same calculations on an envelope and with comparatively little mental work.

In our speech words express concepts or ideas. By ideas are meant broader concepts, not representing the group sign of similar perceptions, but embracing various groups of perceptions, or even groups of concepts. Therefore an idea is a complex or an abstract concept.

Concepts and ideas come about at the level of knowledge.

In addition to the simple sensations of the sense organs (color, sound, touch, smell and taste), in addition to the simple emotions of pleasure, pain, joy, anger, surprise, wonder, curiosity and many others, there is passing through our consciousness a series of complex sensations and higher (complex) emotions (moral, esthetic, religious). The content of emotional feelings, even the simplest, not speaking indeed, of the complex, can never be wholly confined to concepts or ideas, and therefore can never be correctly or exactly expressed in words. Words can only allude to it, point to it. The interpretation of emotional feelings and emotional understanding is the problem of art. In combinations of words, in their meaning, their rhythm, their music; in the combination of meaning, rhythm and music; in sounds, colors, lines, forms—men are creating a new world, and are attempting therein to express and transmit that which they feel, but which they are unable to express and transmit simply in words, i.e., in concepts. The emotional tones of life, i.e., of “feelings,” are best transmitted by music, but it cannot express concepts, i.e., thought. Poetry endeavors to express both music and thought together. The combination of feeling and thought of high tension leads to intuition, i.e., to a higher form of consciousness. Thus in art we have already the first experiments in a language of intuition, or a language of the future. Art anticipates a psychic evolution, and divines its future forms.

Emotions and arts come about at the level of culture and wisdom.

At the present time mankind has attained to three units of psychic life: sensation, perception, conception (and idea), and attains only rarely the fourth unit, higher intuition, which finds its expression in art.

If Kant’s ideas are correct, if space with its characteristics is a property of our consciousness, and not of the external world, then the three-dimensionality of the world must in this or some other manner depend upon the constitution of our psychic apparatus.

If thought is seen as a substance then consciousness is also part of the external world.

It is possible to put the question concretely in the following manner: What bearing upon the three-dimensional extension of the world has the fact that in our psychical apparatus we discover the categories above described—sensations, perceptions, concepts and intuitions?

We possess such a psychical apparatus, and the world is three-dimensional. How is it possible to establish the fact that the three-dimensionality of the world depends upon such a constitution of our psychical apparatus?

Three-dimensionality applies to the experience of matter only and not to the experience of the whole world. The complete experience depends on the assimilation of all sensations from matter, radiation and thought.

This could be proven or disproven undeniably only with the aid of experiments.

If we could change our psychic apparatus and should then discover that the world around us changed, this would constitute for us the proof of the dependence of the properties of space upon the properties of our consciousness.

For example, if we could make the higher intuition, existing now only in the germ, just as definite, exact, and subject to our will as is the concept, and if the number of characteristics of space increased, i.e., if space became four-dimensional instead of being three-dimensional, this would affirm our presupposition, and would prove Kant’s contention that space, with its properties, is a form of our sensuous receptivity.

Or if we could diminish the number of units of our psychic life, and deprive ourselves or someone else of conceptions, leaving the psyche to act by perceptions and sensations only, and if by so doing the number of characteristics of the space surrounding us diminished; i.e., if for the person subjected to the test the world became two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional, and indeed one-dimensional as a result of a still greater limitation of the psychic apparatus, by depriving the person of perceptions—this would affirm our presupposition, and Kant’s idea could be considered proven.

That is to say, Kant’s idea would be proven experimentally if we could be convinced that for the being possessing sensations only, the world is one-dimensional; for the being possessing sensations and perceptions the world is two-dimensional; and for the being possessing, in addition to concepts and ideas, the higher forms of knowledge, the world is four-dimensional.

Or, more exactly, Kant’s thesis in regard to the subjectivity of space perception could be regarded as proven (a) if for the being possessing sensations only, our entire world, with all its variety of forms should seem a single line; if the universe of this being should possess but one dimension, i.e., should this being be one-dimensional in the properties of its receptivity; and (b) if for the being possessing, in addition to the faculty of feeling sensations, the faculty of forming perceptions, the world should have a two-dimensional extension. If all our world with its blue sky, clouds, green trees, mountains and precipices, should seem to him one plane; if the universe of this being should have only two dimensions, i.e., should this being be two-dimensional in the properties of its receptivity.

More briefly, Kant’s thesis would be proven could we be made to see that for the conscious being the number of characteristics of the world changes in accordance with the changes of its psychic apparatus.

Assimilation is natural. The “will” is the mechanism that brings about assimilation by recognizing and resolving anomalies. As assimilation continues beyond memory and experience we get conception and knowledge.

To perform such an experiment, effecting the diminution of psychic characteristics is impossible—we cannot arbitrarily limit our own, or anyone else’s psychic apparatus.

Experiments with the augmentation of psychic characteristics have been made and are recorded, but in consequence of many diverse causes they are insufficiently convincing. The chief reason for this is that the augmentation of psychic faculties yields, first of all, so much of newness in the psychic realm that this newness obscures the changes proceeding simultaneously in the previous perception of the world.

The entire body of teachings of religio-philosophic movements have as their avowed or hidden purpose, the expansion of consciousness. This also is the aim of mysticism of every age and of every faith, the aim of occultism, and of the Oriental yoga. But the problem of the expansion of consciousness demands special study; the final chapters of this book will be dedicated to it, and it will be the subject of detailed examination in the book, “The Wisdom of the Gods.”

The expansion of consciousness demands special study to help assimilation.

For the present, in proof of the above stated propositions with regard to the change of the world in relation to psychic changes, it is sufficient to consider the question of the diminution of psychic characteristics.

If experiments in this direction are impossible, perhaps observation may furnish what we seek.

Let us put the question: Are there not beings in the world standing toward us in the necessary relation, whose psyche is of a lower grade than ours?

Such psychically inferior beings undoubtedly exist. These beings are animals.

Of the difference between the psychical nature of an animal and of a man we know very little: the usual “conversational” psychology deals with it not at all. Usually we deny altogether that animals have minds, or else we ascribe to them our own psychology, but “limited”—though how and in what we do not know. Again, we say that animals do not possess reason, but are governed by instinct, as though they had no self-consciousness but were some sort of an automatic apparatus. As to what exactly we mean by instinct we do not ourselves know. I am speaking not alone of popular, but of so-called “scientific” psychology.

Animals are a stage in the ongoing evolution. The mind of animals have lower capabilities, but it operates without being interfered with. That is not the case with the human mind that has much higher capabilities, but it is also very sensitive to interference.

Let us try to discover what instinct is, and learn something about animal psychology. First of all let us analyze the actions of animals, and see wherein they differ from ours. If these actions are instinctive, what inference is to be drawn from the fact?

What are those actions in general, and how do they differ?

In the actions of living beings we discriminate between those which are reflex, instinctive, conscious (and automatic), and intuitive.

Reflex actions are simply responses by motion, reactions upon external irritations, taking place always in the same way, regardless of their utility or futility, expediency or inexpediency in any given case. Their origin and laws are due to the simple irritability of a cell.

What is the irritability of a cell, and what are these laws?

The irritability of a cell is defined as its faculty to respond to external irritation by a motion. Experiments with the simplest mono-cellar organisms have shown that this irritability acts according to definite laws. The cell responds by a motion to outside irritation. The force of the responsive motion increases as the force of the irritation is intensified, but in no definite proportionality. In order to provoke the responsive movement the irritation must be of a sufficient intensity. Each experienced irritation leaves a certain trace in the cell, making it more receptive to the new irritations. In this we see that the cell responds to the repetitive irritation of an equal force by a more forceful motion than the first one. And if the irritations be repeated further the cell will respond to them by more and more forceful motions, up to a certain limit. Having reached this limit the cell experiences fatigue, and responds to the same irritation by more and more feeble reactions. It is as though the cell becomes accustomed to the irritation. It becomes for the cell part of a constant environment, and it ceases to react, because it is reacting generally only to changes in conditions which are constant. If from the very beginning the irritation is so weak that it fails to provoke the responsive motion, it nevertheless leaves in the cell a certain invisible trace. This can be inferred from the fact that by repeating these weak irritations, the cell finally begins to react to them.

Thus in the laws of irritability we observe, as it were, the beginnings of memory, fatigue, and habit. The cell produces the illusion, if not of a conscious and reasoning being, at any rate of a remembering being, habit-forming, and susceptible to fatigue. If we can be thus deceived by a cell, how much more liable are we to be deceived by the greater complexity of animal life.

But let us return to the analysis of actions. By the reflex actions of an organism are meant actions in which either an entire organism or its separate parts act as a cell, i.e., within the limits of the law of variability. We observe such actions both in men and in animals. A man shudders all over from unexpected cold, or from a touch. His eyelids wink at the swift approach or touch of some object. The freely-hanging foot of a person in a sitting position moves forward if the leg be struck on the tendon below the knee. These movements proceed independently of consciousness, they may even proceed counter to consciousness. Usually consciousness registers them as accomplished facts. Moreover these movements are not at all governed by expediency. The foot moves forward in answer to the blow on the tendon even though a knife or a fire be in front of it.

Reflex actions are caused by thinking that is programmed. The programming is caused by repeated stimulus, which then settles into a constant response. It could also a traumatic stimulus that leaves a strong, fixed impression on thinking.

By instinctive actions are meant actions governed by expediency, but made without conscious selection or without conscious aim.

They appear with the appearance of a sensuous tincture to sensations, i.e., from that moment when the sensation begins to be associated with a conscious sense of pleasure or pain, and they are governed, according to the splendid expression of Wells, by the “pleasure-pain guidance of the animal life.”

As a matter of fact, before the dawn of self-consciousness, i.e., of human intellect, throughout the entire animal kingdom “actions” are governed by the tendency to receive or to retain pleasure, or to escape pain. Schopenhauer recognized no other pleasure than the cessation of pain, and declared that pain dominated all animal life. But this idea is too paradoxical, and in substance it is not true. Pleasure and pain are not different degrees of one and the same thing, and pleasure is not always and only the cessation of pain. In it there is not alone the cancellation of a minus, but there is an active plus element. The taste of pleasure consequent upon the sensation of pain, and the taste of pleasure itself are entirely different.

We may declare with entire assurance that instinct is a pleasure-pain which, like the positive and negative poles of an electromagnet, repels and attracts the animal in this or that direction, compelling it to perform whole series of complex actions, sometimes expedient to such a degree that they appear to be sensible, and not only sensible, but founded upon foresight of the future, almost upon some clairvoyance, like the migration of birds, the building of nests for the young which have not yet appeared, the finding of the way south in the autumn, and north in the spring, etc.

But all these actions are explained in reality by a single instinct, i.e., by the subservience to pleasure-pain.

During periods in which millenniums may be regarded as days, by selection among all animals the types have been perfected, living along the lines of this subservience. This subservience is expedient, that is, the results of it lead to the desired goal. Why this is so is clear. Had the sense of pleasure arisen from that which is detrimental, the given species could not live, and would quickly die out. Instinct is the guide of its life, but only so long as instinct is expedient solely; just as soon as it ceases to be expedient it becomes the guide of death, and the species soon dies out. Normally “pleasure-pain” is pleasant or unpleasant not for the usefulness or the harm which may result, but because of it. Those influences which proved to be beneficial for a given species during the vegetative life, with the transition to the more active and complex animal life begin to be sensed as pleasant, the detrimental influences as unpleasant. As regards two different species, one and the same influence say a certain temperature—may be useful and pleasant for one, and for another detrimental and unpleasant. It is clear, therefore, that the subservience to “pleasure-pain” must be governed by expediency. The pleasant is pleasant because it is beneficial, the unpleasant is unpleasant because it is harmful.

Instinctive actions are governed by expediency, and made without conscious selection or aim. They are guided solely by pleasure-pain.

Next after instinctive actions follow those actions which are conscious and automatic.

By conscious action is meant such an action as is known to the acting subject before its execution; such an action as the acting subject can name, define, explain, can show its cause and purpose before its execution. Sometimes conscious actions are executed with such swiftness that they appear to be unconscious, but in spite of this it is a conscious action if the acting subject knows what it is doing.

A conscious action is known to the acting subject before its execution. no matter how swiftly it is executed.

Automatic actions: these are actions which have been conscious for a given subject, but because of frequent repetitions they have become habitual and are performed unconsciously. The acquired automatic actions of trained animals were previously conscious not in the animal, but in the trainer. Such actions often appear as conscious, but this is a complete illusion. The animal remembers the sequence of actions, and therefore its actions appear to be considered and expedient. They really were considered, but not by it. Automatic actions are often confounded with instinctive ones—in reality they resemble instinctive ones, but there is an enormous difference between them. Automatic actions are developed by the subject during its own life, and for a long time before they become automatic it must be conscious of them. Instinctive actions, on the other hand, are developed during the life-periods of the species, and the aptitude for them is transmitted in a definite manner by heredity. It is possible to call automatic actions instinctive actions worked out for itself by a given subject. It is impossible, however, to call instinctive actions automatic actions worked out by a given species, because they never were conscious in different individuals of a given species, but were compounded out of a series of complex reflexes.

Automatic actions are instinctive actions developed by the subject during its own life. The subject must have been conscious of them before they became automatic.

Reflexes, instinctive and “conscious” actions, all may be regarded as reflected, i.e., as not self-originated. Both these and others, and still a third class, come not from man himself, but from the outside world. Man is the transmitting or transforming station for certain forces: all of his actions in these three categories are created and determined by his impressions of the outside world. Man in these three species of actions is, in substance, an automaton, unconscious or conscious of his actions. Nothing comes from him himself.

Only the higher category of actions, i.e., the intuitive, appear not to depend upon the outside world. But the aptitude for such actions is seldom met with—only in some few persons whom it is possible to describe as MEN OF A HIGHER TYPE.

Having established the differences between various kinds of actions, let us return to the question propounded before: In what manner does the psyche of an animal differ from that of a human being? Out of the four categories of actions the two lower ones are accessible to animals (and in very rare cases the highest, the “intuitive”). The category of “conscious” actions is inaccessible to animals. This is proven first of all by the fact that animals have not the power of speech as we have it.

As has been shown before, the possession of speech is indissolubly bound up with the possession of concepts. Therefore we may say that animals do not possess concepts.

Is this true, and is it possible to possess the instinctive mind without possessing concepts?

All that we know about the instinctive mind teaches us that it acts possessing sensations and perceptions only, and that in the lower grades it possesses sensation only. The consciousness which does its thinking by means of perceptions is the instinctive mind, i.e., that which depends upon its emotions. The emotions only give it the possibility of exercising that choice between the perceptions presented to it which produces the impression of judging and reasoning. In reality the animal does not reason its actions, but lives by its emotions, subject at every given moment to that emotion which happens to be strongest. Although indeed, in the life of the animal, acute moments sometimes occur when it is confronted with the necessity of choosing among a certain series of perceptions. At such moments its actions may seem to be quite reasoned out. For example, the animal, being put in a situation of danger acts often very cautiously and wisely. But in reality its actions are directed by emotion only. It has been previously shown that emotions are expedient, and that the subjection to them in a normal being must be expedient. Any perception of an animal, any recollected image, is bound up with some emotional sensation or emotional remembrance—there are no non-emotional, cold thoughts in the animal soul, or even if there are, these are inactive, and incapable of becoming the springs of action.

Thus all actions of animals, sometimes highly complex, expedient, and apparently reasoned, we can explain without attributing to them concepts, judgments, and the power of reasoning. Indeed, we must recognize that animals have no concepts, and the proof of this is that they have no speech.

The greater is the assimilation of sensations, the more “conscious” are the actions.

If we take two men of different nationalities, different races, each ignorant of the language of the other, and put them together, they will find a way to communicate at once.

One perhaps draws a circle with his finger, the other draws another circle beside it. By these means they have already established that they can understand one another. If a thick wall were put between them it would not hamper them in the least—one of them knocks three times, and the other knocks three times in response.

The communication is established. The idea of communicating with the inhabitants of other planets is founded upon the idea of light signals. It is proposed to make on the earth an enormous lighted circle or a square to attract the attention of the inhabitants of Mars and to be answered by them by means of the same signal. We live side by side with animals and yet cannot establish such communication. Evidently the distance between us and them is greater, and the difference deeper, than between men divided by the ignorance of language, stone walls, and enormous distances.

Another proof of the absence of concepts in the animal is its inability to use a lever, i.e., its incapacity to come independently to an understanding of the principle of the action of the lever. The usual objection that an animal cannot operate a lever because its organs (paws and so forth) are not adapted to such actions does not hold for the reason that almost any animal can be taught to operate a lever. This shows that the difficulty is not in the organs. The animal simply cannot of itself come to a comprehension of the idea of a lever.

The invention of the lever immediately divided primitive man from the animal, and it was inextricably bound up with the appearance of concepts. The psychic side of the understanding of the action of a lever consists in the construction of a correct syllogism. Without constructing the syllogism correctly it is impossible to understand the action of a lever. Having no concepts it is impossible to construct the syllogism. The syllogism in the psychic sphere is literally the same thing as the lever in the physical sphere.

His mastery of the lever differentiates man as strongly from the animal as does speech. If some learned Martians were looking at the earth, and should study it objectively from afar by means of a telescope, not hearing speech, nor entering into the subjective world of the inhabitants of the earth, nor coming in contact with them, they would divide the beings living on the earth into two groups: those acquainted with the action of the lever, and those unacquainted with such action.

The psychology of animals is in general very misty to us. The infinite number of observations made concerning all animals, from elephants to spiders, and the infinite number of anecdotes about the mind, spirit, and moral qualities of animals change nothing of all that. We represent animals to ourselves either as living automatons or as stupid men.

We too much confine ourselves within the circle of our own psychology. We fail to imagine any other, and think involuntarily that the only possible sort of soul is such as we ourselves possess. But it is this illusion which prevents us from understanding life. If we could participate in the psychic life of an animal, understand how it perceives thinks and acts, we would find much of unusual interest. For example, could we represent to ourselves, and re-create mentally, the logic of an animal, it would greatly help us to understand our own logic and the laws of our own thinking. Before all else we would come to understand the conditionality and relativity of our own logical construction and with it the conditionality of our entire conception of the world.

An animal would have a very peculiar logic. It indeed would not be logic in the true meaning of the word, because logic presupposes the existence of logos, i.e., of a word or concept.

The depth of logic depends on the degree of assimilation of the sensations in the hierarchy of perceptions, memories, experiences, knowledge and wisdom.

Our usual logic, by which we live, without which “the shoemaker will not sew the boot,” is deduced from the simple scheme formulated by Aristotle in those writings which were edited by his pupils under the common name of “Organon,” i.e., the “Instrument” (of thought) . This scheme consists in the following:

A is A.
A is not A.
Everything is either A or not A.

It is possible to represent it more clearly in this way:

I am I.
I am not I.
All that is in the world must be either I or not I.

The logic embraced in this scheme—the logic of Aristotle is quite sufficient for observation. But for experiment it is insufficient, because the experiment proceeds in time, and in the formulae of Aristotle time is not taken into consideration. This was observed at the very dawn of the establishment of our ex- perimental science—observed by Roger Bacon, and formulated several centuries later by his famous namesake, Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, in the treatise “Novum Organum”—”The New Instrument” (of thought). Briefly, the formulation of Bacon may be reduced to the following:

That which was A, will be A.
That which was not A, will be not A.
Everything was and will be, either A or not A.

Upon these formulae, acknowledged or unacknowledged, all our scientific experience is built, and upon them, too, is shoemaking founded, because if a shoemaker could not be sure that the leather bought yesterday would be leather tomorrow, in all probability he would not venture to make a pair of shoes, but would find some other more profitable employment.

The formulae of logic, such as those both of Aristotle and of Bacon, are themselves deduced from the observation of facts, and do not and cannot include anything except the contents of these facts. They are not the laws of reasoning, but the laws of the outer world as it is perceived by us, or the laws of our relation to the outer world.

Could we represent to ourselves the “logic” of an animal we would understand its relation to the outer world. Our cardinal error concerning the psychology of animals consists in the fact that we ascribe to them our own logic. We assume that logic is one, that our logic is something absolute, existing outside and independent of us, while as a matter of fact, logic but formulates the laws of the relations of our specific I to the outside world, or the laws which our specific I discovers in the outside world. Another I will discover other laws.

The purpose of Logic is to assimilate things so they form a consistent whole. Logic associates observations, thoughts, concepts and other elements of the universe, to make them continuous, consistent and harmonious. When things are not logical we have anomalies. These anomalies may be described as discontinuity (missing data), inconsistency (contradictory data), and disharmony (arbitrary data).

The logic of animals will differ from ours, first of all, from the fact that it will not be general. It will exist separately for each case, for each perception. Common properties, class properties, and the generic and specific signs of categories will not exist for animals. Each object will exist in and by itself, and all its properties will be the specific properties of it alone.

This house and that house are entirely different objects for an animal, because one is its house and the other is a strange house. Generally speaking, we recognize objects by the signs of their similarity; the animal must recognize them by the signs of their difference. It remembers each object by that sign which had for it the greatest emotional meaning. In such a manner, i.e., by their emotional tones, preceptions are stored in the memory of an animal. It is clear that such perceptions are much more difficult to store up in the memory, and therefore the memory of an animal is more burdened than ours, although in the amount of knowledge and in the quantity of that which is preserved in the memory, it stands far below us.

The memory of an animal is more burdened than ours because its contents are less assimilated.

After seeing an object once, we refer it to a certain class, genus and species, place it under this or that concept, and fix it in the mind by means of some “word,” i.e., algebraical symbol; then by another, defining it, and so on.

The animal has no concepts; it has not that mental algebra by the help of which we think. It must know always a given object, and must remember it with all its signs and peculiarities. No forgotten sign will return. For us, on the other hand, the principal signs are contained in the concept with which we have correlated that object, and we can find it in our memory by means of the sign for it.

From this it is clear that the memory of an animal is more burdened than ours, and this is the principal hindering cause to the mental evolution of an animal. Its mind is too busy. It has no time to develop. The mental development of a child maybe arrested by making it memorize a series of words or a series of figures. The animal is in just such a position. Herein lies the explanation of the strange fact that an animal is wiser when it is young.

In man the flower of intellectual force fades at a mature age, often even in senility; in the animal, quite the reverse is true. It is receptive only while it is young. At maturity its development stops, and in old age it undoubtedly degenerates.

The logic of animals, were we to attempt to express it by means of formulae similar to those employed by Aristotle and Bacon, would be as follows:

The formula A, is A, the animal will undersand. It will say (as it were) I am I, etc. ; but the formula, A is not, A, it will be incapable of understanding. Not A—this is indeed the concept. The animal will reason thus:

This is this.
That is that.
This is not that.

or,

This man is this man.
That man is that man.
This man is not that man.

I shall be obliged to return to the logic of animals later on; for the present it is only necessary to establish the fact that the psychology of animals is peculiar, and differs in a fundamental way from our own. And not only is it peculiar, but it is decidedly manifold.

Among the animals known to us, even among domestic animals, the psychological differences are so great as to differentiate them into entirely separate planes. We ignore this, and place them all under a single rubric—“animals.”

A goose, having entangled its foot in a piece of watermelon rind, drags it along by the web and thus cannot get it out, but it never thinks of raising its foot. This indicates that its mind is so vague that it does not know its own body, scarcely distinguishing between it and other objects. [Mr V A Daniloff (the investigator of religious questions, folk-lore, sectarianism, etc., who has also examined deeply into the comparative psychology and the psychology of animals) has called my attention to the fact that as an example of a “stupid” animal it is necessary to take the hen and not the goose. Geese, according to him, possess well developed psyches, communicate among themselves, and so on. In the case in question the goose might have tried to tear the piece of watermelon rind.] This would happen neither with a dog nor with a cat. They know their bodies very well. But in relation to outside objects the dog and the cat differ widely. I have observed a dog, a ‘Very intelligent” setter. When the little rug on which he slept got folded and was uncomfortable to sleep on, he understood that the nuisance was outside of him, that it was in the rug, and in a certain definite position of the rug. Therefore he caught the rug in his teeth, turned it and pushed it here and there, the while growling, sighing, and moaning until someone came to his aid, for he was never able to rectify the difficulty.

With the cat such a question could not even appear. The cat knows her body very well, but everything outside of herself she takes as her due, as given. To correct the outside world, to accommodate it to her own comfort, never comes into the cat’s head. Perhaps this is because she lives more in another world, in the world of dreams and phantasies, than in this. Accordingly, if there were something wrong with her bed the cat would turn herself about repeatedly until she could lie down comfortably, or she would go and lie in another place.

The monkey would spread the rug very easily indeed.

Here we have four psychologies, all quite different; and this is only one example: it would be possible to collect others by the hundred. And meanwhile there is for us just one “animal.” We mix together many things that are entirely different; our “divisions” are often incorrect, and this hinders us when it comes to the examination of ourselves. To declare that manifest differences determine the “evolutionary grade,” that animals of one type are “higher” or “lower” than those of another, would be entirely false. The dog and the monkey by their intellect, their aptness to imitate, and by reason of the dog’s fidelity to man, are as it were higher than the cat, but the cat is infinitely superior to them in intuition, esthetic sense, independence, and force of will. The dog and the monkey manifest themselves in toto: all that they have is seen. The cat, on the other hand, is not without reason regarded as a magical and occult animal. In her there is much hidden of which she herself does not know. If one speaks in terms of evolution, it is more correct to say that the cat and the dog are animals of different evolutions, just as in all probability, not one, but several evolutions are simultaneously going forward in humanity.

The recognition of several independent and (mechanically) equivalent evolutions, developing entirely different properties, would lead us out of a labyrinth of endless contradictions in our understanding of man.

The different psychologies come about from different capabilities to assimilate sensations.

July 13, 2015 – 9:11 AM Categories: Philosophy | Comments (1)

Vinaire's Blog

The Logic of “I”

Reference: The Logical Structure of the Universe (Part 3) – Space to Human Consciousness

Tertium Organum, Chapter 9 (Assimilation)

Chapter 9 (Assimilation)

The Logic of Reality

Universe: Space to Human Consciousness (old)

Tertium Organum, Chapter 8 (Consciousness)

Chapter 8 (Consciousness)

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